Thursday, July 24, 2014

And So It Begins: TV Ads and the County Exec Race

As was covered here, Republican State Senator & County Executive candidate
Allan Kittleman launched his air game this week.

I believe this represents the first major strategic mistake
by his campaign.

I don’t believe a critical mass of voters, a number
likely to comprise a sizable portion of the November 2014 electorate, are
paying attention to political news in late July.Some voters are keyed in, but not enough to
warrant a significant television ad buy in the post-primary/pre-Labor Day
weekend timeframe.

From a strictly technical perspective, the “[select] person-on-the-street”
approach of the 30-second spot I viewed last night makes sense.Third party validation by a few Independent
and Democratic voters is smart, in light of the HoCo party affiliation
numbers.The production quality of the
ad was…OK.Not polished, not terrible. Somewhere
between Steven Spielberg and Mark Borchardt.The messaging construct was straightforward “I am a [D/I] but I am
voting for Kittleman...” About what one would expect from this sort of
commercial.

Personally, I think he is flushing cash.These spots are what you run in September…
with a heavier, more concentrated, advertising buy.I am assuming the Kittleman high command
discussed the timing and the explored the merits of an early launch. There is a
legitimate case to be made: frame the narrative of the fall campaign now, save
some funds by going up when it is less expensive, maybe/hopefully get a spike with Name
ID and a more favorable ballot test to help improve fundraising sooner than
later, etc…

Note that I said that there is a legitimate case, but not a
compelling
one.There are other, better ways to
spend time and resources in July and August...especially when:

a) Funds are limited (Watson enjoys a substantial fundraising advantage over Kittleman) and

b) When the ad is not a game-changer. The ad I watched did not fall into that category.

The bottom line: if too few people are watching, what impact are the TV ads
really having?

By October, the Kittleman
campaign is going to wish they didn’t go up on the air so early.